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"And until I am the monarch, I will never let anyone take possession of movable and landed properties of the others by force or without compensation. Until I am alive, I prevent unpaid, forced labor. To day, I announce that everyone is free to choose a religion. People are free to live in all regions and take up a job provided that they never violate other’s rights."-Koroush Kabir

The point is that we do need to always be aware of our FIFA rankings, because they define our seeding for tournaments which is usually (though not in the case of WC2018) quite useful in terms of potential group stage fixtures.

But we need to be careful in how we appraise our ranking. Being top in the rankings does NOT mean we are the best team in Asia. It means (both the FIFA and ELO rankings) that we have been the most consistent team and have had the best results on average. Particularly our results against our fellow Asian opposition has on average been better than Japan, Korea etc.... That's good, but we can't get carried away by this.

problem with this thinking is while there is some validity to it ( the seed system), it has negative impact far more than positive.

as for seed system. yes, you're right as it determines how we're placed in a qualification group or 1st round of tournamnts.
But wait. surely we must not be that concerned with advancing from FIRST round of asian torunaments or groups, whether we're seeded A (1st to 4th rank) or B (5th to 8th).
so seriously I wouldnt be that worried about this.

But that's all the "positives" I see in it.

now, if we didnt pay attention to this ranking, we remove the EXCUSE/COVER for under-performing and force TM and its coaches to raise their performance.
That in turn will maintain any ranking points (if we're so concerned about it) AUTOMATICALLY.

So whether we pay attention to it or not, but if we tend to benefit from keeping it away from our priorities.

he left the team, despie the defeat, as Number 22 in the world and number 1 in asia. we will now see without friendlies and so on, how long this will last...one of iranÂ´s highest ranking....without using and wining fifa friendlies we will soon lose position..

we shd STOP fooling ourselves with these meaningless rankings that HURT us more than help us

enough of this shit.

I'd rather be ranked 5th (which we might be in reality. or certainly 3rd or 4th) but SUCCEED in games that matter than be 1st but fail to even make the finals of AC

I agree.
People will always remember the teams that lifted the trophy that year rather than who was ranked top of Asia the time.
Apart from us Iranians who will remember that we were top of Asia for several years? Exactly nobody.....

We were doomed in this Asian Cup since the beginning by this beeing ranked top of Asia thing.
Since FIFA launched in the World Rankings in 1993 no team that headed to the Asian Cup as top ranked side ended up winning the Asian Cup.
So there is certainly a curse over it.